The Big Chill

While we're on the subject of wine...
It's Friday night, and hopefully that means that you have some fun social plans. Maybe social plans that involve drinking cold white wine, say. (How did you like that segue?)

But what happens if you have people coming over any minute, and you suddenly realize that because you live in New York City, where kitchens are required by law to be ridiculously tiny, you didn't have space in the fridge for the food, and the wine, and now you have no cold white wine to serve your guests? Not that I've ever had that happen... You could pop that wine in the freezer, wait 45 minutes or so for it to chill, and hope you don't forget it's in there in the meantime. Or, you could try this trick which chills your wine much more quickly (think 15-20 minutes), looks festive, and doesn't require you to use a screwdriver to hack all the ancient bags of frozen peas out of your miniscule freezer.
So take a deep breath and remember to chill.

1. Grab a pretty ice bucket, or any bucket you have lying around. If you don't have a bucket you can use a mixing bowl, but you should probably think about getting an ice bucket, dude. Fill the bucket half way with ice. Pour cold water over the ice, up to the same level.
2. Throw in a couple handfuls of salt. This makes the ice melt faster, and actually gets the temperature of the water lower than that of ice. It's science, see?
3. Submerge the wine bottle in the bucket for 15 or so minutes. Enjoy!